


Tumbling down

by SpitFire97



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: But also not really bad, F/M, Infidelity, Older Man/Younger Woman, Or don't, Self-Destruction, get ready for Borgov's guilt trip, they just need a hug, they're not good people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:08:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28751178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpitFire97/pseuds/SpitFire97
Summary: He issues a challenge to rise above herself, rise above him. She fails. Terribly. Tearing down everything with her.
Relationships: Vasily Borgov/Beth Harmon
Comments: 16
Kudos: 51





	Tumbling down

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [bête](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27718286) by [thefudge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge). 



> I stopped posting what I wrote because I am too inconsistent, but when I saw how few pieces are online on this rare pairing, I felt a need to contribute.  
> Please excuse any grammatical errors, this is not beta read.

It is after that embarrassingly curt and simultaneously maddeningly drawn-out game in Paris that he speaks to her for the first time in a capacity not strictly related to the games. It’s just like it was when her mother had just died – Beth felt numb but determined to hunt down the little green pills that haunt her dreams, when she passes him and his wife in the hallway of the cursed hotel. She knows there are smudges underneath her eyes, an exhaustion that betrays her strong front and so, she ducks her head as she spies them. Willing for herself to pass them quickly. Go unnoticed. As seems to be her perpetual fate, nothing goes the way she wants. She feels their gaze and cowers further into her propped-up collar, thinks that he’ll surely not say anything, when she is stopped by his hand on her upper arm, like a wave crushing against a cliff. Powerful, full of intent, but not enough so to move him. “Are you okay?”, he asks, the first time she’s heard him speak her tongue. Is voyeur to the way his mouth shapes the vowels, harshens a few consonants here and there, misses the flow of the American lilt.

Is she okay? Why would he ask her that? He, to whom she’d been forced to bear her weakness, albeit in front of a crowd, though no one present had been able to discern the extent of her stumbling in her moves. He, who’d seen the shameful tear. He, who should only gloat and perhaps even be disappointed at her failure not to self-destruct, but not this. The thick crease bisecting the skin between his brows spelling worry underneath that grim-faced disappointment. His wife titters anxiously in Russian, pulling her boy close, something she could surely understand, had she the mental faculties to process more than one Borgov. She realizes she’s stared into his face for too long, analysing his pitch to find pity lacking. Something she surprisingly finds refreshing. Maybe he simply doesn’t care about the way life is a bitch. Maybe he simply expects more from her. What had he called not only her but himself, by extension? A survivor. Perhaps life as he knows has treated him harshly, too. She doesn’t _know_. But she suspects. Something flows between them. An understanding?

What is he asking about? Exactly. Why she’s let herself go. Why she went down the path of self-destruction, knowingly? She suspects this is what he knows. The threat of self-sabotage. An understanding settles between them, heavily. It’s not comfortable. Staring her own selfish desires in the eye, mirrored in a man who she thinks has clearly been able to overcome them. She wishes she had that strength. Knows he sees that desire, too. Knows that she cannot tell him that, not right now. Probably never. But she can make the first step. Lying shouldn’t feel so daunting, fighting to get one’s head up shouldn’t go hand in hand with not admitting the truth. The truth that she is _fucked_ , that she _wanted_ to fuck herself, that the pressure had been too great and that it had been easier in that moment to crush that kernel of a chance before giving it a chance. Because failing without trying hurt less than failing even though she’d tried. She wants to wallow in self-pity. It’s paradoxical that he is refusing her that chance by asking about her state of mind. He _expects_ her not to take it and it makes her want to rise to the bait. “Of course, I’m alright.”, she chokes out although she knows she isn’t. He knows she isn’t. He tilts his head. Pleased? And the pressure around her arms wanes.

She doesn’t want to admit that this promise is the thing she clings to after to keep the thirst away, before she inevitably succumbs.

The next time is after she’s just beat him, the high of her win thrumming through her veins, her body electrified by how the king had felt in her hand, the brief press of bodies afterwards. She’s in the elevator, ready to retire, exhausted, really, but too tightly wound to do so. Probably. The elevator pings old-fashionedly, opens, and she catches the tail-end of a conversation, she feels like she shouldn’t have been privy to. Borgov and his wife part, a quick peck on her cheek, a bid to sleep well. And then he steps inside. No KGB, here, where he belongs. He sees her, turns to push the button that will direct him to the correct floor, finds it already pushed. Ah, he is meeting with his comrades, then. Tension prickles in the air, as Beth tries to find words to formulate what she’s thinking. Her admiration, fondness. Thanks, for back then maybe, certainly for this time around.

“When you looked up, you were… it was beautiful.” He uses his lack of proficiency to cover up what he had wanted to say. She sees his half-profile, the sentiment blowing her clumsily phrased beginnings of a sentence away like leaves. Beautiful? He turns more fully. “You could have won, then.”, she admits, sees the tightening in his face before he releases. Poker-face back on. Her eyes flicker to her reflection in the golden elevator, face flushed, eyes bright. _Fucked_. “But I didn’t.” Now there is a newly appraising warmth in his eyes. “No, you didn’t.”, she agrees mildly, perhaps a little teasingly. His lips tug upwards before he returns to his strange intensity, yet again. Beth can’t breathe. He feels closer now and the elevator continues chugging upwards slowly, the model much older than those she knows from back home. His eyes burn her, burn through her and she feels like her heart is on her tongue, beating a staccato, she can barely contain the words that want to pour out of her.

He reaches out then, carefully, perhaps to touch her face? But what should he have reached? Her brow, her nose, her petal lips? Everything about her begs for him to feel the texture. Indecision makes his hand fall again. Her eyes are wide, disbelieving. He knows he stepped closer than before, drawn to her like a moth to the light, but doesn’t know who does what, when, thereafter. He knows he closed his eyes at some point, but before that he knows he’d been able to see her face change from that disbelief to wonder and want. So, the closing must have happened after. Knows she pulled on his lapels to pull his body even nearer. Knows that his hand found her cunt through the thin material of her clothing. Hand spanning her ass in an attempt to bring her closer. Fingertips ghosting over the concentration of heat, tasting the give of her. Her moan caught by him in the frantic clash of mouths. The elevator lurches to a stop, and somehow, somewhere he has the ability to process that this means other people might see. They break apart. He feels like he’s been burnt, flown too close to the light perhaps. Lips spit-slicked and stung, puffed up and red. Hair mussed. Everyone must know. He turns, unable to look at her for a second longer. The doors slide open rustily. His hand finds his lips, tingling. Unable to fathom what he’d just done. The sin he’d just committed. Guilt and shame settle heavily. How could he have been so stupid, so impulsive, so rash.

Beth feels surprised, no, rather stunned, glad for the reprise from prying eyes she is afforded from behind his broad back. Her cunt is still pulsing with the ferocity of her need. The atmosphere is stiff as the doors creak and groan. “Ah, my friend… and the young marvel, herself! Please tell me, Vasily, that you invited the newly crowned grandmaster to our… what do the Americans call it ‘after show party’?”, Beth sees Borgov stiffen, before she peers around him to find Luchenko staring at the both of them warmly, a mischievous glint in his eyes. _He_ half-turns again. Infuriatingly refusing to look at her fully, but drawn to her, nonetheless. She can feel the reluctance pouring off of him in waves, prompting her to decline graciously. Unnerved by his sudden change in behaviour. Oh god, he was married. The realization settles coldly somehow. How had she been able to push that thought aside, when she’d seen their affection not 3 minutes ago. They step out of the thrice-dammed elevator, but Luchenko is relentless.

“Oh, Miss Harmon, you cannot celebrate you winning the title of grandmaster alone in your room.”, “I really shouldn’t.”, she tries again, charmingly. “If my _minder_ knew I was fraternizing with the Soviets…”, she trails of grinning at the thought, but shakes her head. “Ah, even more reason to go. Let us fraternize.”, Luchenko’s eyes twinkle with mirth and she feels the want to go, truly feels bad for refusing him a final time. These are her people after all, the people who understand her. A chance to belong. She opens her mouth to decline, when he cuts her off. “Miss Harmon said she didn’t wish to go.”, Borgov rebukes in clipped Russian. Then, as if to lessen the previous sharpness: “Let me lick my wounds a few hours, Lev, before I have to face the fact…” A weak excuse. Sharp hurt lances through her at that. She hasn’t done anything to deserve his scorn so. He started talking about her beauty. She feels her age, feels like a petulant child when this is the sentiment that sways her decision. A fierce joy at his face blanching, lips pressing into a thin line, muscle in his jaws feathering. There is a challenge in her tone when she turns towards the white tiger to promptly accept his invitation. Luchenko claps delightedly.

He chucks of his most-outer layer immediately, rolls up his shirt sleeves in calm, collected, practiced moves and pours himself a vodka on ice. Steers towards a board, sets up a game, seems hell-bent on ignoring her. The ’after show party’ is a rather quiet, private affair, she finds, not really deserving of that title. In the extravagant room of the Russian national team’s conference room, as she’s dubbed it, Luchenko hands her a cigarette and offers one to Borgov – he refuses – before introducing her to the roughly ten men. They’re all former or aspiring chess players, who’d clearly been expecting to celebrate Borgov’s victory this evening. She is quite obviously the outcast. But while some of the older ones turn up their noses at her, preferring to smoke together and talk in quiet Russian, some of the younger ones are more amicable – more accepting of her as a female. There is no champagne as she might have expected, but some room service and Luchenko makes her eat it, laughing at her pulling faces at the Russian cuisine. He asks her many questions, gives affection easily, and she finds herself laughing along with him. Sometime later, some of the others have already left, others are on the balcony, drinking, discussing, she finds Borgov in solitude, still pouring over the board.

“What are you doing?”, she asks quietly at his side. He huffs, “What does it look like?” Again, in curt Russian. Beth feels indignant, but she recognizes the game, now. “Ah, come to analyse my brilliancy?”, she elbows him slightly to dispel some of the awkward tension but to also draw attention to the self-ironic nature of her statement. She’s not sure whether it has the intended effect, he looks slightly startled. “Yes.”, he recovers. “God!”, she exclaims, letting her head fall backwards “That wasn’t meant to be taken literally.”, she reproaches in English. A silence. “I don’t think I understand.”, he states then, quiet. Beth finds herself snorting a laugh at his quiet seriousness. He turns back towards the board, shuffling around pieces, muttering to himself. A companionship only they can share. “There!”, she points out finally. “That would have been your last chance to turn it around before the adjournment…”, he nods in contemplation. A little looser now than before. His warm scent next to her, almost tangible in its elusiveness. She hears Luchenko snicker behind them. “I don’t think you’re meant to help your competitors get an edge, Liza!”, he points out and Beth feels her face flush with warmth, flailing to find a reason for her leniency. “Liza?” _He_ asks quietly next to her. “That’s what I’m called here, don’t you know?”, she asks surprised. There is a faintly irritated down-turn in the hardness of his mouth he takes another sip and turns back towards the board, not fooling anyone, he’s listening. Beth feels his awareness like a physical presence at her side. “I don’t think he minds _people_ calling you that, dear.”, Luchenko leans close conspiratorially. _He_ sips his drink, doesn’t meet her eyes.

“Let’s play some speed chess!”, she suggests then, to dispel the awkwardness. Borgov, Luchenko and three other players are game, and they pair of to play. To her utter delight, she finds that Borgov is not as precise in speed chess than he is in regular chess. Time constraints making him blunder on a few moves. Good, still – of course – a challenge, but she beats him more easily. Thanks Benny for it, internally. He is flustered when he loses to her repeatedly. Luchenko laughs delightedly and claps his shoulder finally, “Leave him be, dear, before his ego gets even more damaged than it is already.” She grins at him in a manner which she hopes conveys her sheepishness at pushing him thus far. She knows this addiction. “I should go.”, she concedes finally, feels the exhaustion of the day really settle. The brutal match against Borgov, first, and then the strain of the multiple rounds of Blitz against a formidable opponent.

He nurses his drink alone, after everyone leaves, the remaining quickly following the new grandmaster. He finds himself smiling at her vivacity and youth, but the warmth is quickly replaced by the ball of guilt at what had occurred. He doesn’t know what he is doing here, still. His wife, his wonderful, beautiful wife in their shared room below, already asleep, while he is here doing what exactly. Another gulp. Waiting. That’s what he is doing. For the unlikely possibility that she… A quick series of knocks startles him. The door opens a few paces wide, the incriminating light from the hallway falling into the dimly lit room, before she blots it out. The door falls close behind her.

“I thought about this.”, she starts, young, lush body clad in a thin camisole and shorts and a robe, haphazardly thrown over top, to maintain her modesty. He would laugh at that concept, what a weak attempt at making her less alluring, if his throat weren’t as dry. The ice in his glass is clinking, when he sets it down. “You have no right to shame me!”, she is pointing a finger at him – very American in her brashness, youthful in her rashness. What a terrible thing, to want someone with so much destructive potential. “You kissed me!”, she states coldly, stepping closer. He notices his body opening up towards her without his consent. “And you have no right, no right, to make me the perpetrator. I am not the one who’s married…”, the distance is bridged, and she is within arm’s length when he reaches for her. She sighs prettily as he forces her to meld to the contours of his body, each kiss an apology.

There is not much art to the way she fumbles with his buttons, curses and rips two of them. Her impatience evident as she goes for his belt. Or the way he pushes her clothes out of the way to the side to bare her. It’s clashed teeth and nibs turned bites and aggression and passion. Choked of moans as he enters her in unapologetic thrusts, claims her, marks her, as she’s marked him. Takes chips of her the only way that he can. Exposing his weakness, his fear that he is simply another one in the string of men she has beaten. The terrible thought overtaking him, that what he is doing, what they are doing, is simply more of the same to her. He bows towards her, doing the only thing he knows, hopes, may leave something of his with her. An exchange for the traces she’s left in him. Dark bruises blooming prettily against her pale skin, her exposed neck begging for him to worship her. It doesn’t take long before he can’t face her anymore, loosing himself in her warmth, her extasy. Flips her away from him, bends her over the table she had been perched on, before, and fucks bruises into the fronts of her thighs, where they brace against the edge. Hoping it makes her more faceless. Failing. The slope of her back, the tone of her skin, the intonation of the air pressed between her vocal cords, uniquely her. Her moans merge to strings of ‘fuck’ and his name, sometimes. And, doesn’t that make his heart soar and him pound her harder. It’s desperation, punishing, it’s selfish, but she comes, nonetheless, keening, oversensitive. He follows quickly thereafter.

She leaves quietly when he showers her of him. And the next day, she’s left the country.

It’s always hallways they meet in, somehow. Not surprising really. KGB following him everywhere when he is abroad. A little more laxly in Geneva than in countries tightly allied to the west. They are deep in their territory, nonetheless, no matter the swiss claim of independence. It’s not a very prestigious world-class tournament they are taking part in, here, but her acceptance of the invitation followed his quickly. He thinks it might have happened in relation to his, calls himself foolish for hoping. The time in between the Moscow invitational and now, he was high strung, even more reclusive than usual. Cruel in his play, but unimaginative. He knows his wife was suffering, but he couldn’t bring himself to be a decent person, a decent husband for her. He’s learned he isn’t the kind of man taking this type of transgression lightly. That doesn’t stop him from glancing back at her, when he has passed her to make sure he knows which room she is in. Her knowing look isn’t triumphant, it’s pained, shakes him to his core. They both know what will happen, both do and don’t relish the thought. The minder to his left clears his throat.

He finds her not two hours later. He’s glad she let him in. Her room is a mess, he sees pills strewn about on a table, doesn’t know whether she’s taken any. It doesn’t seem like it, her eyes are clear. She looks him straight in the eye when he undoes his tie, takes off his coat, the vest. He feels like he is shrugging of layers or armour instead of fabric. Her gaze follows him, piercing and he can’t meet it. Puts his wallet, passport, wedding-band on a surface. Takes his time. Half-hard already. Then, there is only a white shirt and his trousers left. She is looking at him assessing, as if she still isn’t sure. Doesn’t feel regret. Tried to. Failed.

He steps towards her and it’s like breathing again, her hair, soft, red. The elegant slope of her neck, facing upward to look up at him. He takes his time now. Wants to treasure what little time they have. Needs this like air. Her skin is a little pale, dark smudges underneath her big eyes. The apology tears through him, shattering everything in its wake, before he has processed it. She sinks into his touch, a big sigh, like a defeat. An offering. He tugs on the strands between his fingers a little and her eyes fly open again. Takes the challenge. Dainty hands finding his forearms, carding through the dusting of dark hair interspersed with greys. Leaving a trail of blazing heat. Then to his chest, her clavicles bared underneath the roughness of his palm. She shivers underneath his touch. He pushes a thin strap of her garment away, leaving pebbled skin behind. She’s managed to undo all of his buttons, pushes the pristinely pressed shirt off his shoulders and he aids her, takes off his undershirt too. Her gaze snapping to his chest fills him with heat. She presses into him, nose first, breathing him in, tasting the texture of his hair with cheek and hands. Then hugs him in a strangely comfort-seeking way. Together alone. Isolated by excellence. He’s come to terms with it through the years, but she is much, much younger than him. And thus, he allows her to take what he can give. Mumbles assurances he isn’t sure she understands. Stroking her contours through the thinness of the little clothing she has on. Does she always wear these flimsy things? It’s not good for his blood-pressure.

She shivers finally and looks up at him. Steps a pace away and it’s ripping something away, something inalienable. It’s somehow infantile how she lifts her arms to make him take off her top. He abides the whims of the woman-child, reveals the body of a woman, her uncertain eyes the only clue about the youth within. The need to undo this uncertainty spurs him on, no more gentleness in his touches now. God, the things she must see in his eyes, guarded from anyone but her, unravelling him with the certainty he’s affording her. The certitude about the solidity of the grip she has him in, the power she could wield. Suddenly nothing is enough, she is feeding of him like she is starved. And, maybe, she is. And he is drinking her in with sight, touch, taste, like the alcoholic she should be, not him. Maybe they’re both addicts in this. It’s rough this time, but from the both of them, both seeking their own pleasure in the other, taking everything the other is willing to give. And also, so much more. What a terrible thing it is they are doing. Taking until everything is gone, deconstructing, making a new thing in its ashes.

She feels like it’s fighting what they are doing, looking for a way to get an edge, to dominate. It’s simultaneously the best and the worst decision she has ever made. But she wants to fall. Wants to feel the rush, needs it. Strong enough to blot out other urges. She is soaring underneath him and then atop him. He is holding onto her as if she were everything, the world narrowed down to this thing between them. His grunts and expletives the construct, his eyes the matter. He calls her love through clenched teeth among a string of other words, when they are close. She can tell from the way his face scrunches as if in pain, from the sheen of sweat from how his eyes have lost focus. There is little space between them now, in this dark, heated space. Shared breath, artless kisses that are more a point of contact than intricate work. It rushes though her, when he grinds against the apex of her thighs and she feels it everywhere. There is no sweet helping her through it, no exclamations of love, no further endearments. A singular expletive, this one she knows, and a final punishing thrust, before he twitches inside her. She’s oversensitive, feels the rush of fluid. Chalks the endearment up to the heat of the moment. Tries not to feel disappointment or pity.

The shame in his eyes, following the extasy almost immediately, is a low blow and he knows it. He’s too close to miss it, makes her feel dirtied. He rolls of her, panting. It is unfair how this can be some little mistake to him and to her, it’s… life-giving. She laughs at her mind’s choice of words. His gaze is slightly disoriented before it shows him feeling insulted. She feels vengeful when she doesn’t correct his assumptions. He has left before she’s fully down from the high.

He’s come inside her for the second time, which at this point can no longer be made to be a mistake, he thinks after, but must be acknowledged for the intention it is. They are sitting at dinner with the other competitors, fools for the most part. His wife to his left and _her_ to his right. His wife is perfectly lovely in the way she makes quiet, dignified conversation with the others and all he can think about is the cum that must still be running out of her, the scratches on his back, still reddened. He calls his wife a dear, when he asks her to pass the potatoes and her gaze is like a weight. Her answering smile is sweet. He can’t help but chance a glance at _her_ , though, whom he has not yet spoken to throughout the dinner. She seems unaffected, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, glorious. And, he realises then what grave a sin he committed. He loves her.

His weakness makes him ruthless. He wins. Helps her lick her wounds afterwards.

It’s years later, when she prances around the room sparsely-dressed, her nakedness never failing to distract him, even after all this time, but her much more comfortable in the space she holds within him. Dethroning everyone and everything, even his good sense of self-preservation. Her youth shows in the way she can recover more quickly than him. Puffs a cigarette, languishing on the chaise in front of the window. The look she casts him dulcet. Accepting of their innate sadness. It stopped hurting a long time ago that his son wouldn’t look at him anymore, his wife didn’t accompany him to matches any longer. Them having given up any pretence. She had fought like an imprisoned wild cat at first, when the agents caught on, leering at her when she came to his rooms. Shouting out her feeling of inequity, ‘simply a dirty little secret’ she’d called it. So, he had stopped treating her like a secret. As simple as that. The least he could do. A small apology for the things they did to one another. The ostracism, the people’s disfavour, the hardships. There was no point anyways, the KGB knew, his wife caught on eventually. The state forbid the divorce, she’d tried to file, for fear of him defecting. All of it paled in contrast to her eyes and lips and skin.

She’d called her involvement with him their finest act of self-destruction. And wasn’t that the truth? He’d broken down everything for a chance to hold her terrible heart. Their love a band-aid barely holding together the pieces. She’d known his penchant for it the moment he’d first held her, only matched by her own propensity to destroy herself. Back then it had been a challenge to rise above him, to flee to safer waters, but of course it set forth the cascade that led them here. What a terrible thing. He looks at her face, and the, now familiar, fierce need to protect to fight crashes through him. She must’ve seen it, because she stands and hurries towards him, rewards him as she always does. And, isn’t that the thing he lives for?

**Author's Note:**

> I don't condemn infidelity, no matter how I illuminate his emotions in this piece. I simply feel he wouldn't take it lightly. I seem to have a kink for people that aren't good for themselves or each other...


End file.
